Traditional tactile controls that include push buttons and rotary switches may cause significant visual and biomechanical distractions if they are located away from the driver`s line of sight and hand position, for example, on the central console. Gestural controls, as an alternative to traditional controls, are natural and can reduce visual distractions; however, their types and numbers are limited and have no feedback. To overcome the problems, a driver interface combining gestures and visual feedback with a head-up display has been proposed recently. In this paper, we investigated the effect of this type of interface in terms of driving performance measures. Human-in-the-loop experiments were conducted using a driving simulator with the traditional tactile and the new gesture-based interfaces. The experimental results showed that the new interface caused less visual distractions, better gap control between ego and target vehicles, and better recognition of road conditions comparing to the traditional one.

Werner, S., 2014, The Steering Wheel as a Touch Interface: Using Thumb-Based Gesture Interfaces as Control Inputs while Driving, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, ACM, pp.1-4.